a perseid-august-falling

from a young age
I knew that scars were

best
kept
on the outside
rather than
on the inside
it felt peaceful
ordained somehow
to bare a badge of injury--pain
to bruise
to bleed
to form thickened skin
stretched
pale as a badge
webbed
tatter-woven
inside scars : suffocated
binding tight to hollow spaces
ringing with the infinite
the sharpness
scar me up & lay me down
ink the line morel-black
resplendent
to elude the phantomn pursuit
THEN
we find
love
and t
he teeter-totter balancing act begins
love is discovered under bridges
--the balm to our scars
ending the requirement to bleed
shining during the passage
Love :
the unbridled inhuman-joy heard
in a meadowlarks song
the love of a grandmothers hand upon your back coupled by the smell of oatmeal
as captain kangaroo ping-pongs
the smell of summer wafting off your mothers skin
the presence of a father sitting for hours at the foot of your bed watching as you
slowly
breathe
yourself
to sleep
under that quiet vigilance
the soft ginger prickle of a baby's just-hatched hair beneath your lips
the easy comfort of a friend
the companionable love of noble & complicated men
men.
where laughter, glory and the sky become tamed
and the rockem-sockem ghost-love of a man
with sparkling walnut eyes
asks for a willing surrender--a tacit understanding
to trust its intimate quantum-rising.
the mark it leaves
the pain endured
the story told
scars ride shot-gun on the outlaw love-trail
coloring us in aqua-forgiveness under a perseid night that lights the path home
Fehu
love is scar-divine.

tumbling after

rumble
thump
echo
darkness peaks to pinnacle
paper scissors rock
jack be nimble
of mind polished to smooth ivory marble
captured flashes of human might
bold strokes of burning whispers bright
tap
rumble thump
the spell is cast
shadows bind now
to pressure leaps
little moth has lost her sheep
the porridge sun
tips the mast
to darkened waters where
mermaids cast away
this nonsense
riddle me away
the man in the moon has saved the day 

of three o'clock on the 1st of August

to be both here
and
there
formed yet endless
yearning still in resplendent contentment
not too tight
not too loose
edges polished
as bruised tissue
obeys the tuck & fold
like your mother's curtains
or
a wool skirt from 1976
tuck & fold
alight
behold the golden field of our molten tenure
the sparrow
or the meadowlark
or the grain ... where is the gem of us?
ah - there
in the immortal blue sky of
this day
unbound

gone

emptiness coming into thunder
as the hackberry rustles in the wind
i am the rustle
sky white upon infinity's throat
no honeysuckle drip dripping
no rubbed & inky pages
the void lies thick against the blue jay
lines of conduct are hot to the touch
hot
where does the yearning go?
where is the pull to you?
wrapped in sureness
dancing against the light
amber-love rich
golden flight of the knowing

courage

slipped in sidewise
between
maple leaves
and
the summer-pressed stillness
of this july morning
time opens its wonder
to
everytime
before
and
yet to come
wrapped in unfolding day lilies
at once
6
and
60
freckled sky against the spell
warming warming
this day
of
rustle & remark
even the blue jays are quiet

this moment
slipped sidewise
to the sun

sun tea of peppermint & licorice

There is a lawn mower mowing

a female cardinal chatting somewhere 

this July sky 

not blue

not white 

too bright 

to gaze at for any length of time 

air heavy with humidity and Baghdad's sorrow 

and 

the 

weight 

of 

forecasted 

rains 

the summer is 

wild 

fierce 

and vulnerable.  

I am dreaming of water 

not blue

not white

but too bright to look at for any length of time  

a boat … sunshine 

and those things associated with you that press against heart & bone 

the lawn mower is still mowing 

and now a wren is calling for her mate

and the rains will come

of two o'clock on the second day in July

the smooth perpendicular curve of the
tap tap tap
paper-white anthems of fireworks
pierced and petaled
staccato hour of day
tap tap tap
periwinkle comes the afternoon
resplendent in its smells of weariness & woodpeckers
the air feels perfect; azure crinoline brilliance
gleaning seeming
tap tap
will it rain later?
of green labyrinth stillness I become
pink aster's sun
awake
and
listening